Thursday, August 13, 2009

The Important Stuff First . . .

I'm back from holidays! Yesterday was the official laundry and readjustment day, and today is the back to real life day. I hope to actually post some photos of our trip this year (ha ha) but in the meantime, I thought I would start with the "important" things.

I picked up this great book on my trip:


I don't believe I haven't heard more buzz about Lotta Jansdotter's newish book, Simple Sewing for Baby. Did I miss it, or did it come out at the same time as something with a better marketing campaign? In any case, maybe I just have babies on the brain, but I love this book. The projects in it look fantastic, are super practical and utterly doable by a beginner sewer or a mom with small ones underfoot.

I want a girl now, just so I can make a whole bunch of these:


And I know what the boys are getting for Christmas:


I love the idea of these little velcro pouches:


And the super simple change pad that I didn't photograph, but which will fit nicely in this quick, functional diaper bag:


Although I'm not great at the simple, Nordic asthetic, I did grow up in Northern Ontario surrounded by Finnish immigrants with saunas in their basements and rag rugs on the bare wood floors, so I do have a taste for Lotta's style. Its also great that there are not only full patterns in the front envelope of the book, but a bunch of stencils for decorating the projects (including those monster faces - how much do I want to put one of those on a shirt for Aaron?).

So, since the diaper bag and change pads and pouches require home decor weight fabric, I decided that it was time to give in to something that had been tempting me for a few weeks: Starlit Nest's close out sale. If you like Heather Ross or some of those almost gone Free Spirit Home Decor fabrics, you should check out her store before it closes.
She is selling Nigella fabric for a really good price, so I picked up a bit:

And I picked up a scrap pack of birds that will be going out as part of my Threads Together packages:


And she does these great grab bag jelly rolls (yes, that is Heather Ross, Joel Dewberry and Heather Bailey goodness you see in there):


With the knowledge that all this goodness was coming to my front door when I got back, I hardly bought any fabric on holidays. No, really.

6 comments:

Anna Michelle Irish said...

That looks like Little My hanging out in the diaper bag! Do you read the Moomins? Now there is something truly Finnish. My mom grew up in Naantali, where there is a Moomin Village. My aunt has moved back there now, so I guess I should visit sometime!

Jilly said...

Lotta is Swedish, so it wouldn't surprise me if she was a Moomin. I never read the books, but I do recognize the main hippo-like characters because my friend Lisa used to read them. I don't know if she had them in English, or just in Finn.

Jilly said...

That is, if the doll was a Moomin, not Lotta.

Anna Michelle Irish said...

I have them all in English—you should check them out, I think you'd like them. They're quite quirky, right up your ally! You can see he characters at http://www.moomin.fi/moomin.htm, if you want to make the acquaintance of Little My...

Kristen said...

Yes, I too want a little girl this time so you can make her a dress like that :o)

Jilly said...

Well, Kris, if things go as they have so far, we'll probably both have girls or both have boys. I promise that if you have a girl and I have a boy, I shall consider you a good receiver of all my girl clothes sewing urges in the future.